Andrew C. Revkin has been one of the most influential and respected reporters on the environment for nearly a quarter century, covering subjects ranging from Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami to the assault on the Amazon, from the troubled relationship between science and politics to climate change at the North Pole. He recently joined the staff of Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies as senior fellow for environmental understanding, where he will research, write, and teach about climate change, the environment, and the issues of sustainability and population. Revkin’s work as a reporter for The New York Times took him to the Arctic three times in three years. In 2003, he became the first Times reporter to file stories and photos from the sea ice around the Pole. In October 2007, Revkin created Dot Earth, a Times blog on climate, development and the environment. The blog has an audience of over 300,000 monthly readers. You can visit the blog and learn more here: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/

David Gershon is one of the world’s foremost authorities on behavior-change and large-system transformation, and applies this expertise to issues requiring community, organizational, and societal change. His clients include cities, government agencies, large organizations, and social entrepreneurs. He has addressed a wide diversity of issues, ranging from low carbon lifestyles, livable neighborhoods, and sustainable communities to organizational talent development, corporate social engagement, and cultural transformation. Over the past thirty years the empowerment programs he has designed have won many awards, and a major academic research study described them as “unsurpassed in changing behavior.”

David used his empowerment proficiency to organize at the height of the cold war, in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund and ABC Television, one of the planet’s first major global consciousness-raising initiatives—the First Earth Run. Building on his background as the Director of the Lake Placid Olympic Torch Relay, he used the mythic power of relaying a torch of peace around the world to engage the participation of twenty-five million people in sixty-two countries, the world’s political leadership and, through the media, an estimated 20 percent of the planet’s population in an act of global unity. Millions of dollars were raised as part of this event to help UNICEF care for the neediest children of the world.

Gershon is the author of eleven books, including Social Change 2.0: A Blueprint for Reinventing Our World (winner of four book awards), and the best-sellers Low Carbon Diet: A 30 Day Program to Lose 5,000 Pounds and Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life As You Want It. He co-directs Empowerment Institute’s School for Transformative Social Change which empowers social entrepreneurs and change agents from around the world to design and implement transformative social innovations. He has lectured at Harvard, MIT, and Duke and served as an advisor to the Clinton White House and the United Nations on behavior change, community empowerment, and sustainability issues. For more information visit www.empowermentinstitute.net and www.socialchange2.com.

Peter Bardaglio is a senior fellow at Second Nature, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the principles of sustainability in higher education. Co-author of Boldly Sustainable: Hope and Opportunity for Higher Education in the Age of Climate Change (2009), he is the coordinator of the Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative, a multisector effort in the Ithaca, NY area to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. Bardaglio was the provost and vice president of academic affairs from 2002 to 2007 at Ithaca College, where he helped to launch the college’s nationally recognized sustainability initiative. A member of the senior council of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and the editorial board of Sustainability: The Journal of Record, Bardaglio is also a higher education sustainability fellow with the Society for College and University Planning. Bardaglio received his Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in history from Stanford University and his A.B. degree in history and English from Brown University.
 

Charles Button is an associate professor for the Central Connecticut State University Department of Geography. His academic and research interests include global climate change, water resources, and human-environment interaction. He is the founder and faculty chair of the CCSU Global Environmental Sustainability Action Coalition and serves on CCSU president Jack Miller’s Advisory Council for Environmental Sustainability. Button is a recipient of governor M. Jodi Rell’s 2007 Climate Change Leadership Award. He has over twenty-five years of experience working for and with numerous environmental NGO’s, businesses, academic, and governmental agencies. Prior to coming to CCSU, he served as research fellow for the United States Environmental Protection Agency and environmental programs director/ recycling coordinator for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Button earned his doctorate degree in geography from the University of Cincinnati.